Divine Apostasy Book 12 - Chapter 25

Chapter 25

The carrot immediately turned a deep orange, which seeped like toxin into Ruwen’s skin. He studied the cursed magic with Harmony, both the location aspect and the skin coloring portion.

The location magic was incredibly clever. Instead of trying to bypass the vast number of concealment magics, Blapy had instead focused on the energy an item absorbed or carried because of the value others placed on it. The more valuable something was to someone, the more of this energy surrounded it.

With what Ruwen had learned of the various magic systems, Blapy had almost certainly tapped into Conceptual magic to make this work.

The orange coloring however, confused Ruwen. He stood in the middle of the chamber silently studying how his skin turned color. It took him almost a minute to realize it wasn’t magic at all, but alchemy.

This caused Ruwen’s curiosity to flare and he returned his attention to the carrot. How had Blapy combined Conceptual magic with Grandmaster level alchemy so flawlessly that it had appeared like magic to him for a full minute.

The first report from Whiskers distracted Ruwen and pulled him from his thoughts. Whiskers hadn’t seen, heard, or smelled anyone but was convinced nonetheless that something hid in the jungle. That was enough confirmation for Ruwen. He needed to finish up here and not get too distracted. Once he’d collected all the chakra gems he’d devote some time to this masterful construction.

Ruwen slowly turned, a little concerned that the deep orange color already covered his entire body. He shrugged. It would fade in ten minutes, so the color didn’t really matter. It did highlight a drawback of using the carrot. He stood in a place that already had a massive amount of importance associated with it, which is why he looked like a pumpkin. He would need to pay close attention to the shades of orange on his skin to detect the other pocket of value in here.

It took four long minutes to home in on a normal looking pool roughly halfway between where the center structure had stood and the back wall. Ruwen’s skin had turned so dark orange it verged on red. It didn’t look healthy, but his Health hadn’t decreased so he trusted it wouldn’t kill him. At least not right away.

Ruwen put the carrot away, knelt, and studied the small pool. It spanned two feet and he created a ball of light to illuminate the liquid. Analyze confirmed it was just water, and not a clear acid or some other terrible solution.

Refraction made the pool’s depth hard to determine, but Stone Echo had calculated it dropped two feet. The submerged walls and floor of the pool looked no different than the rest of this natural cavern. Other than the carrot there was nothing here to indicate this pool held anything special.

Harmony found soothing chords Ruwen associated with fluids, calmness, and purity, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Ruwen removed the Carnelian of Desire and the surroundings burst with more vivid details. The pool now combined tranquility with what he recognized as purpose or duty and maybe pride. The complex harmony had become visible only because of the changes his Sacral chakra had caused.

Softly humming a “D” tone, Ruwen’s Sacral chakra responded, and the swirling harmonic shapes grew more complex. For the first time, he detected something new. Wisps of melodies created a fist sized abnormality that reminded him of dust covered cobwebs. It felt familiar to him, and he paused to give the memories time to surface.

With a rush that made Ruwen gasp, a flood of memories swamped his thoughts. All of them from the same place.

The Spirit Realm.

Only now Ruwen knew its real name—the Creation Realm. The leprechauns had originated there, and it made sense they’d find a way to continue using it.

The braided melodies that created the small pocket into the Creation Realm looked strange to him, but not totally unfamiliar. He could sense Overlord, Uruziel, and Lir standing above him, observing with curiosity.

Reaching out, Ruwen tried to interact with the structure, but his hand slid off it. Using more force didn’t help. It felt like pushing two magnets together using the same pole.

Ruwen spoke for their benefit. “I’ve never seen braided melodies like this before and I’m betting they’re part of a more complex harmony that I can’t comprehend which keeps the rest of it invisible. Honestly, I think the only reason I’m detecting this harmonic structure at all is because I’ve seen a mirror version of them.”

The black mask that covered all of Ruwen’s head but his eyes unraveled with a thought. This Destruction Essence was all he could manage to keep active in the Material Realm while his Saraph body remained stored in the five Destruction Realm Meridians.

The Destruction Essence responded to Ruwen’s Will and hung off his neck. Even though he used his human form in this Realm, he still possessed a practical immunity to Destruction Essence thanks to his Saraph body. His left hand still held the Carnelian of Desire so he used his right hand to angle the mask into different positions until he finally detected the harmonic structures he wanted.

The three sisters that had founded the Bamboo Viper Step Clan possessed a method of using shadows to cross into the Destruction Realm. They’d naturally called such a place the Shadow Realm. Ruwen now knew why such an amazing ability like crossing between Realms was possible for them.

The Death Tower’s avatar had explained the natural flow of magic—Creation Realm into the Material Realm into the Destruction Realm. The combination of these three Realms was called the Realm of Bones and its physical structure recycled the collected magic in the Destruction Realm back to the Creation Realm by passing through itself in the fourth dimension. It looked like a bottle that intersected with itself. He’d based the structure of his Spirit Core on the same concept.

It was this flow of magic that explained why getting into the Destruction Realm didn’t pose much of a barrier. It was a place meant to collect things from the Material Realm. The ever present shadows made the threshold between Realms porous and flexible.

Traveling any significant distance against this flow became incredibly difficult. It was why the Death Tower avatar believed Ruwen would have a challenging time entering the Creation Realm. Ruwen had evolved out of order. He possessed a Destruction body now and it would act as an anchor to his ascent while the Creation Realm repelled him. Just like the small pocket of Creation repulsed his hand right now.

The Death Tower had sent Hama and Sift out the bottom of the Destruction Realm and through the fourth-dimension-return-path to enter the Creation Realm via the back door. This crossing only worked because they didn’t contain any Destruction Essence. The same trip would disintegrate Ruwen.

All that knowledge had given Ruwen an idea though. Maybe he could use that process to his advantage.

Ruwen focused on the Destruction Essence of his mask. On one corner he gently separated the complex harmonies into melodies. He stretched out onto his stomach and pushed the mask into the pool. The water boiled and hissed where the Destruction Essence touched it, making normal vision impossible.

The chaotic tones of the steam were easy to see past with Harmony and Ruwen carefully brought the deconstructed melodies close to their opposite melodies around the Creation Realm pocket. He intended to use the Destruction Essence to pull at the Creation Essence in the construct, unraveling it or perhaps creating enough weakness to allow his hand to penetrate the Creation Realm.

Normally the Creation and Destruction Realms were separated by the Material Realm and Ruwen discovered why.

Explosions. Powerful ones.

Ruwen’s Divine Domain kept him from being thrown backward, but the blast vaporized his hand and arm. Contact between the two essences had created an explosive force much greater than anything he’d thought possible and even his Divine reflexes couldn’t avoid it.

Afraid the Carnelian of Desire would get destroyed by the detonation two feet away, and unable to manipulate his Void Band there in time, Ruwen did the only thing he could, and willed the gem into his Soul vault.

Excruciating pain erupted in Ruwen’s chest as his whole body spasmed.

The expanding explosion destroyed the right side of Ruwen’s body and face and continued upward. Within fractions of a second sunlight, warm damp air, and river water began filling the chamber.

Ruwen’s tried Last Breath but the pain radiating from his Soul didn’t abate and he released it. A tug-of-war between his Sacral chakra and Soul had liquified his organs and what felt like burning needles of jagged glass filled his Soul.